14 oberholser: spizixidae, new family of birds 



who helped to build the irrigation ditches. Farms of loo or 

 200 steps were assigned, "according to the size of the family." 

 Since a "step of the same foot," at an ordinary walking gait, is a 

 little more than four feet, the Pima unit may be estimated at 

 about four acres, or slightly larger than the Maya "one man" 

 area, 400 feet square. Allotments of 10 acres of irrigable land 

 are now being made to each member of the Pima nation. 



ORNITHOLOGY. — Spizixidae, a new family of pycnonotine 

 P as serif ormes. Harry C. Oberhoi^ser, Biological Survey. 



Further researches in the family Pycnonotidae apparently make 



necessary the removal of still another group as the type of a 



separate family. The genus Spizixos is not at all closely allied 



to its present family associates, and the proper course seems, 



therefore, to be its segregation as a new family, which will bear 



the name 



Spizixidae, fam. nov. 



Diagnosis. — Similar to the Pycnonotidae, but bill shorter, stouter, 

 and somewhat compressed, its height at base much more than half the 

 length of the exposed culmen, and equal to the length of biU from 

 nostril (instead of much less), its width at the anterior end of nostrils 

 equalling or exceeding one-half the length of the exposed culmen (in- 

 stead of much less) ; lateral outline of maxilla somewhat convex (in- 

 stead of concave) ; mandible, basally broad, its width at the beginning 

 of the interramal feathering (angle of gonys) equal to the length of 

 gonys (instead of only one-half to two-thirds the length of same); 

 interramal space anteriorly broadly rounded, almost U-shaped (in- 

 stead of narrow, triangular, and rather pointed — nearly V-shaped), 

 and rami posteriorly almost parallel, instead of being widely divergent; 

 gonys much up-curved distally; culmen strongly decurved from ex- 

 posed base; bristles of chin much developed, reaching beyond the 

 middle of the bill; nostrils entirely and densely covered by antrorse 

 bristly feathers. 



Family characters. — Bill thick, short and pyrrhuline; culmen rounded, 

 curving down from the frontal feathers; angle of gonys opposite the 

 anterior end of nasal fossae; gonys sharply ascending distally, keeled 

 distally, but rounded proximally; terminal portion of maxilla tomium 

 strongly notched; lateral outline of maxilla convex; interramal space 

 anteriorly broadly U-shaped, the rami posteriorly almost parallel; 

 nostrils small and rounded, situated at the anterior edge of the nasal 

 fossae and nearly on a level with the surrounding rostral surface ; entire 

 nasal fossae covered by stiffish antrorse feathers ; head entirely feathered 

 and with long nuchal hairs; tail of twelve feathers, slightly rounded, 



